Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
But Trump made things clear in his endorsement: Paxton got it because he was loyal to Trump—the only thing that matters. Too bad, Republicans, this is the guy you hitched yourselves to. So does this mean Texas actually is gettable for Democrats, or is heartbreak looming once again?
Sawyer Hackett: Good to be with you, Greg.
Trump also cited Paxton’s support for ending the Senate filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, which is a disgusting voter suppression bill. And Trump ripped Senator John Cornyn, the current GOP incumbent, as “not supportive of me when times were tough.” Sawyer, your reaction to that?
So clearly this was all about Trump’s own personal wishes for this race. He wanted a sycophant in this race that he could control, that he could manipulate, and that’s what he’s going to get with Paxton.
Hackett: Yeah, Cornyn is someone who has voted with Trump 99 percent of the time. I mean, this is somebody who goes out of his way to post these kind of obsequious, subservient pictures of Trump and holding Trump’s book, constantly trying to flatter Trump and voting with Trump 99.2 percent of the time in the Senate. And he was not loyal enough to Trump. This is somebody who did not go far enough in his loyalty, his obsequiousness to Trump.
And in Texas, in a state known for kind of independent, these Western cowboys who stand up for their values and fight for the things that they believe in, you have two men essentially competing for who can lick Trump’s boots the best. And clearly Paxton has come away winning that contest.
Sawyer, can you give us the case for why Paxton is weaker as a candidate than Cornyn is, due to the corruption, the extremism, and everything else?
He’s somebody who’s been underwater on his approval rating for many, many years. He’s somebody who’s been impeached by a Republican-controlled legislature. He’s somebody who has been federally criminally indicted on multiple felony counts—securities fraud and bribery and many other things.
I think that polling—head-to-head polling between Paxton and Cornyn as who would be the better nominee—I don’t necessarily think reflects the depths of a campaign, a vigorous campaign between two nominees where you’re going to have negative ads running constantly. Democrats are going to be able to weaponize Paxton’s record and Paxton’s personality in the state way better than they would have done with Cornyn as the nominee.
The polls are showing a dead heat between Talarico and Paxton. Sawyer, can you bring us up to date on how Talarico’s campaign has been doing? Where is he succeeding? Where is he failing? What does he have to do now?
But at the same time, I think Talarico is jumping for joy today with Trump’s endorsement of Paxton, because this is a man who is going to fire up a lot of the constituencies that Talarico needs to win while also turning away a lot of voters that I think Republicans desperately need to win.
He’s going to be somebody who’s going to help Democrats raise a ton of money. He’s going to be much easier to contrast with in a November election and the get-out-the-vote phase. He’s the embodiment of Trumpism, Trump politics, which is extremely unpopular across the country. He’s going to turbocharge turnout among Latino voters and Black voters in the state. And he’s going to alienate suburban voters, especially suburban women, who Texas Democrats need if they’re going to assemble a winning coalition.
It seems like Talarico is almost perfectly positioned to use Paxton as a foil, precisely because Talarico is running this campaign that is really almost designed to counter-program Trumpism on a very profound level. Is that right, do you think?
That has been the message I think Talarico has led with. It’s been an overwhelmingly populist message focusing on corruption, focusing on bringing it back to a message on working people and what working people need to succeed today. That message was already crystal clear in the Trump era.
Sargent: It’s a fascinating matchup. We had Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski publicly admit that Trump’s endorsement will make it harder for Republicans to hold Texas. She told reporters: “I think this puts that seat in jeopardy.”
Hackett: Yeah, I mean, I think you’re probably hearing the same thing coming out of the DNC and Democratic circles today. Democrats have been looking ahead at this kind of Senate map and whether we have the ability to keep a hold on the Senate past 2026, past 2028. The map has not been looking good for us.
And you have the coalition that Trump needed to win in 2024—which was an increasing number of Latino voters and Black voters, particularly Black and Latino young men. You had young voters turning towards Trump. You had suburban voters turning towards Trump. All of those coalitions have completely reversed themselves. So of course, Texas is in play this cycle.
And Paxton and Cornyn flushed millions of dollars down the drain in this primary that Trump waited to endorse for weeks and weeks and weeks, and left Republicans in dire straits financially heading into a get-out-the-vote phase of this election.
Still though, I have to say, I keep hearing from Democrats that they’re generally pretty worried about the spending disparity. There’s been a lot in the press about that as well. We’re going to see an immense amount of right-wing money in Texas now to try to save this seat against Talarico and Democrats, right? Will Democrats have the resources to compete? Will they be outspent? Does that matter?
I think Talarico can raise that kind of money, especially with Paxton as the nominee, especially with Democrats looking at the Senate map and needing a battleground state like Texas to flip blue if we’re going to take back the Senate. Trump just handed Democrats their messaging on a silver platter to invest in a state like Texas.
But I do think he’s going to need some backing from some of the national organizations. And maybe that’s not the national party—maybe it’s some of the organizing organizations. But I think they will have his back as we look ahead to November.
I mean, you’ve got these Republican senators who are furious. The New York Times reports that they’re l”ivid.” For instance, Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota said, quote-unquote, “Oh boy,” after hearing about Trump’s endorsement. And then Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi is being described by numerous reporters as stone-faced. They know that this is potential calamity, basically, isn’t it?
This is a senator who is very well respected within the Republican conference. And Trump is already having a difficult time managing control over this very tightly divided Congress. Trump just helped oust Cassidy, who is the head of the HELP Committee in the Senate. And now he’s turning and ousting one of the most senior Republicans in the entire conference in John Cornyn.
Sargent: So Sawyer, it seems like the big story here is what you’re getting at when you say that Trump is on this power trip. On some fundamental level, what we’re seeing here is that Trump simply cannot imagine that he and/or Trumpism and MAGA have become toxic. He is surrounded by sycophants at all times. He only looks at polls that show him winning. He has his own pollsters telling him he’s winning, winning, winning. He constantly tweets out polls that are just, I think, basically made up, or so buffoonishly cherry-picked that they’re meaningless.
Hackett: I think so. I mean, coupled with the kind of coalition turning on Trump that he had in 2024—Latinos, Black voters, young voters—I think coupled with that independent shift away from Trump towards Democrats is exactly what I’m talking about when I say a perfect storm is happening in Texas.
And so I think in a state like Texas, where you have some of the highest share of independent voters in the country who are turning against Trump and are having an aversion to candidates like Paxton, a candidate like Talarico is poised to pick them up in droves—and especially in places like the suburbs outside of those major cities. Especially suburban women who have seen abortion access taken away and now mifepristone access threatened by somebody like Paxton. Paxton led that effort.
Sargent: In a way, the choice of Paxton by Trump kind of perfectly typifies the degree to which he’s in a bubble about his own toxicity. It’s a total calamity he’s threatening Republicans with by picking Paxton, but he’s unable to imagine that Paxton, who’s as MAGA as they get, would be toxic.
Hackett: The difficulty in assembling a winning coalition in Texas is just the sheer size of the state. You have to compete in those traditional Democratic strongholds of the cities and those Latino communities along the Rio Grande Valley. You have to be able to pick up voters in the suburbs and you have to be able to compete in rural areas.
That being said, the sheer number of independent voters and the different layers of the coalition that Democrats have to assemble to win is very difficult. And so you do need a ton of money, not only to reach into every corner of the state, but also to be doing that deep outreach into constituencies like Latino voters who are harder to reach and harder to persuade and harder to turn out in a general election.
We’re always talking about the ballroom, talking about these payments from the IRS, talking about all this stock trading that he’s doing. Trump is elevating someone like Paxton who is just known for being a corrupt politician at a time when that’s going to be not only at the center of the national conversation, but at the center of Talarico’s message as a candidate.
Sargent: And I will add, independents absolutely hate corruption. So if there were a way to get those independent voters in the numbers you need, this is the matchup that could do it. It is possible that Trump really screwed himself very royally here. Sawyer Hackett, awesome to talk to you. Thank you so much. That was super illuminating.
Hackett: Yeah. Great to be with you, Greg.
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